Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) has announced that it will launch its new Asia-North Europe Express (AEX) service in April.
HMM opens a new Asia-North Europe loop in accordance with the increased demand for express service. AEX is an independent service operated by HMM outside of the strategic cooperation with 2M.
In the meantime, HMM has utilised 2M’s vessel space in Europe trade.
Last year, HMM’s handling volume dramatically increased to 4.03 million TEUs, up more than 30 per cent y-o-y mainly in Asia, US and Europe trades.
HMM will deploy 10 Panamax (4,600-TEU) vessels in AEX service and its first sailing begins on April 8, 2018. Port rotation of the new service is Pusan, Shanghai, Ningbo, Kaohsiung, Shenzhen, Singapore, Colombo, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Southampton, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Pusan.
AEX also offers faster connections among main calling ports with these transit times: Busan-Rotterdam (30 days), Busan-Hamburg (32 days), Shanghai-Rotterdam (28 days) and Shanghai-Hamburg (30 days).
In addition, HMM plans to order new eco-friendly mega containerships in the first half of 2018 to comply with the new environmental regulation starting from January 1, 2020, and positively considers to deploy mega vessels in US and Europe services.
Mr C. K. Yoo, CEO of HMM, commented: “New environmental regulations are expected to drive changes not only to the shipping industry but also to competitive market environments. I believe that HMM can secure competitiveness in a global market after 2020 if HMM arms itself with eco-friendly mega containerships in preparation of environmental regulations… The 2020 environmental regulation will be an important market-changing factor in shipping industry and the new independent AEX service will be the touchstone of a game-changer.”
